A few weeks ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report* comparing the potential impacts of a 1.5°C versus 2°C rise in global temperature above pre-industrial times, various pathways to limit the rise to 1.5°C and how we might adapt to a warmer planet. The IPCC report does not offer new information - it is a compilation of research to date.
The climate has already warmed by 1°C since pre-industrial times. The goal is thus to limit further warming to .5°C by 2100 (allowing for a temporary “overshoot”). Whether temperatures rise another .5°C or 1°C, bad things will happen: rising sea levels, extreme weather, stressed ecosystems, threats to agriculture (pests, droughts), and heat-related challenges to human society (more depression and crime). This does not mean that millions will be displaced or that crushing poverty or food shortages will affect “hundreds of millions” of people, as the hysterics would have it.
Climate change does not mean impending doom. The earth has been warmer many times before. The biosphere survived and sometimes thrived. It’s just that humans are used to a cooler planet. So we have to change our ways. This is new for us. Coasts need to be protected; crops made more resilient, wild habitat expanded and better managed. We need to reduce some stressors unrelated to climate change (over-fishing, poor governance) to build resilience to the new stressors. The human settlement pattern won’t look exactly the same in 80 years, but that’s hardly “displacement”. That’s human history.
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Next: Pathways to Making It Better